


The Cost of Immortality

by WoodenSuitcase



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Light Angst, Memories, POV Third Person Limited, POV Yasmin Khan, Past Relationship(s), River Song's Diary, death mention, i haven't really tagged before and have no idea what i'm doing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 00:25:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18789271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WoodenSuitcase/pseuds/WoodenSuitcase
Summary: Yasmin and Ryan find something while exploring the TARDIS. They hadn't realized how long the Doctor's backstory was, nor how much of it was unknown to them.





	The Cost of Immortality

**Author's Note:**

> A little something I made to look productive while still avoiding my studies.

They had had quite a day. Graham called it an early night soon after they retreated to the TARDIS, but Ryan and Yasmin found they were still too full of adrenaline to do the same. After some useless fiddling around the Doctor suggested they go take a swim.  
"I'm not sure if the pool is actually there," she'd said, "it comes and goes and it's been long since I last used it. It could be fun finding out, though!"

Yasmin could tell Ryan wasn't too fond of the idea. However, they both had seen the longing looks the Doctor had been giving to the glowing space below the console, and they thought it best to give her some alone time with her ship.

In the end, they couldn't find the pool. The TARDIS was difficult to navigate at best, what maps and door labels they found often being written in the strange circular markings the Doctor called Gallifreyan. They found something else, though.

It looked like a storage room. It was filled with a great variety of things, different layers of dust covering everything as if every item had been brought there just to be forgotten. It was perfect -- interesting and mysterious enough to help pass the time, yet quiet and unmoving and thus supposedly safe for two pairs of sleepless hands to explore.

At first, few things were surprising -- the Doctor was an alien time-traveler, after all, and her companions had came to expect the unexpected. There were many things with more Gallifreyan on them, some the odd mechanical constructs the team was used to seeing, others very different but somehow still fitting well in the aesthetic. There were objects in the room that were just... alien, and some that looked like they had just been bought from a regular Earthen gift shop. There was a wooden cradle in the corner, and fezes seemed to pop up everywhere. And, of course, there were books. Lots of them.

Some were unreadable by just their condition, some couldn't be opened, others were written in scripts the TARDIS wouldn't translate. Most seemed comprehensible, but even then there were so many Yasmin could never read them all. Luckily she found herself content with just running her hand over the backs. There was a fairly new, handwritten copy of Shakespeare right next to the full Harry Potter series, centuries old and lovingly battered. _Time travel,_ Yasmin reminded herself with a smile.

"Yaz. Come look." Ryan was holding a small blue book, its cover bearing an unmistakable resemblance to the TARDIS.  
"What is it? A manual?"  
"I think it's a diary."  
Yasmin frowned. "Shouldn't we not--"  
"It's not Doctor's. I think it's..." Ryan bit his lip. "You should just look for yourself."

Yasmin did.

It indeed wasn't Doctor's. Still it was too full of her -- _him_ , as the Doctor's wife phrased it (she had a _wife_?) -- for Yasmin to truly feel comfortable reading it, even though she and Ryan only skimmed through it. The yellow pages were smeared with lipstick and tears and sand from odd planets, names upon names of loved ones Yasmin had never heard of flying past her eyes. Pieces of adventures made their way from the book to her mind, all in wrong order and making everything make both more and less sense.

The Doctor was very old. They'd known that for a time already, but it had never felt real. She had mentioned past lives with different faces, too, but Yasmin would be lying was she to claim she had ever actually believed her. True, she had seen the Doctor breathe gold, but this woman having been a frowny old Scot just moments before was plain impossible -- except nothing was impossible when it came to the Doctor. The pictures of her many faces stared at her from between the pages.

Everyone thought about immortality at some point, it was bound to happen when you were a human. Yasmin didn't know if the Doctor was immortal, but she was _old_ \-- old enough that suddenly all those seemingly meaningless conversations mattered. Old words were flooding to the surface of Yasmin's mind from deep within her memories.

A classmate had once said ze only wanted to be immortal if hir family would be the same, because ze didn't want to see them die. A few sentences about old gravestones in Manhattan, a soufflé girl meeting a raven, words from the start of a night on someplace called Darillium, and Yasmin had no idea how the Doctor could still live as the cheery optimist she was.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This is the fist Doctor Who fic I've ever written. It's been forever since I saw season 11 and I totally missed Resolution, so I hope I didn't write anyone too out of character.
> 
> English isn't my first language, and I'd be happy to learn more of it, so don't be afraid to mention it if there are any odd phrases (or typos) in the fic! Except for the -- markings, they're somewhat intentional. I have no idea how to make the long slash so I just do that instead.


End file.
